It certainly wasn’t his best performance of the season overall, but at least in the eyes of NFL.com’s Gregg Rosenthal, Pittsburgh Steelers’ quarterback Ben Roethlisberger did enough to earn a bump up the rankings in his weekly QB Index.
One week after actually dropping four spots despite playing winning football on the road in Cleveland, Roethlisberger played slightly worse against the Bears and somehow jumped three spots in Rosenthal’s rankings.
It’s certainly all subjective, but it’s a bit puzzling to see Roethlisberger play relatively poorly against the Bears (I gave him a C- in my positional grades piece immediately following the win) somehow rise up the QB Index.
“Big Ben put his whole heart into that 42-yard throw to James Washington on Monday night, which showed the limitations and charm of this season in Pittsburgh,” Rosenthal writes. “He’s giving it his best in what is likely his swan-song campaign. The Steelers had a lot of chances to put the game away and could only muster 280 yards against a depleted Bears defense, but once again it was just enough.”
The throw to Washington was certainly ugly, especially when clips our own Dave Bryan uncovered show that Roethlisberger’s claim of his hand being hit on the throw are false. However, it’s important to note that Roethlisberger didn’t have his feet set, which certainly led to the football floating like a lead balloon to Washington.
Aside from that though, it’s hard to see how Roethlisberger climbed three spots in the rankings when the only quarterback to fall behind Roethlisberger is Carolina’s Sam Darnold, who dropped all the way to No. 32 overall, falling four spots. In fact, every quarterback behind Roethlisberger climbed the rankings this week aside from Darnold, as Seattle’s Geno Smith rose three spots, Houston’s Tyrod Taylor went from unranked to No. 24, Detroit’s Jared Goff climbed two spots to No. 25, and Chicago’s Justin Fields climbed six spots to No. 26.
Rosenthal’s rankings system is a bit hard to follow honestly, especially when you get towards the lower half of the top 32, but regardless of how difficult it might be to follow on a week-to-week basis, it’s great to see Roethlisberger getting some positive attention as he works his way back up the index.
